American Nurseryman, June 2014

In the June 1 1934 issue of American Nurseryman we find the following report on a topic that would seem to be more current than eight decades ago Lest anyone be confused lets make it clear up front that the N R A to which this excerpt refers is the National Recovery Administration an agency established in 1933 under the newly enacted National Industrial Recovery Act Franklin D Roosevelt was president at the time The N R A was created to oversee the drafting and implementation of the codes of fair competition provisions for minimum wage and the right to collective bargaining were part of the act Many in business however protested including members of the nursery industry Protest Against Salesmen under N R A Nurserymen at Washington Hearing May 24 Object to Proposal to Give Outside Salesmen Minimum Wage If outside salesmen are made subject to N R A minimum wages and maximum working hours the nursery industry will be seriously handicapped and 12000 persons may be out of employment Paul Stark Louisiana Mo representing the Retail Nurserymens Association of the United States informed the National Recovery Administration in a protest presented in behalf of the association A hearing on the subject was held at N R A headquarters at Washington D C May 24 Our association represents nurserymen who have been in business for many years and have for more than fifty years been selling their products through houseto house canvassing said Mr Stark This is their main business and they distribute a great deal of merchandise They depend heavily on this method of merchandising Practically all of our men are part time salesmen chiefly on account of the seasonal situation and because all types of men in local communities represent the different nurseries in these local communities They are farmers retired preachers country merchants and elderly people who have physical handicaps and who can put in only part of the time and are not physically able to do more Type of Salesmen Further there are housewives and all sorts of people selling on part time to supplement their income They sell largely in their local communities and the demand is more or less limited and at infrequent intervals they sell their merchandise During the period of the depression and unemployment this has been an important thing for many people It has helped to supplement their incomes and has kept many off the charity rolls helped to maintain their self respect and their morale by earning something Most of the companies I represent have tried this many times and I do not know of a single case where the minimum wage plan has been tried and it has been made to work Experience has shown us that it will not work where we have tried it the salesmen have lost their initiative For various other reasons too it has not worked out satisfactorily These men do not work every year They may work this year and next year and they may not work this month and next We have about 12000 men on our list of salesmen scattered all over the country part time workers to supplement their incomes These people build up in their community a service and have fulfilled the service and taught the public how to prune and spray and care for the trees and they are regarded as a sort of authority in their respective localities To be frank there are 12000 men that we could not put back so far as I know now I could not say we would go out of business because we would have to find some way Mr Stark declared it would be impossible to establish a minimum wage for full time work and pay the salesmen proportionately for the part of the day they actually work because of the impossibility of keeping a check on their operations New York Congressman Protests Congressman John Taber of New York whose district includes a number of nurseries sent a strong letter of protest against the minimum wage In view of the fact that these people are all part time people having occasional employment it seems absolutely ridiculous for the N R A to attempt to ruin business by such a regulation said the Congressman I wish to protest to the best of my ability against additional indication that the N R A is attempting to ruin business I hope that this proposed regulation will not be put through These people cannot operate if they are obliged to raise their costs Neoshos Brief Neosho Nurseries Co Neosho Mo filed a brief pointing out that nursery salesmen are employed only part time therefore it would be necessary to dismiss them if a minimum wage is fixed Continuing the company asserted If the theory of this proposed plan is that it will aid employment and recovery it is fundamentally wrong since this proposed plan if put into effect will throw out of employment a vast army of people who now have part time employment as well as many permanently employed whose positions are dependent on the sales of the parttime agents As a whole the type of part time commission salesmen who sell nursery stock and various other products is such that most of them could not get other regular employment and it would be a serious handicap to eliminate the source of their income It is impossible to supervise or check up the hours of work which these parttime salesmen put in All the contacts are through the mail and they are so widely separated in various rural communities that supervision is impossible both on account of expense and the widely scattered locations We have tried it in the past with the following results The results have shown a net loss to the company the salesman who is guaranteed a minimum wage has been content to take the guaranteed wage without making the usual effort to get additional sales the part time salesman is essentially a person who is in business for himself who works at his own hours and at his own convenience or combines it with other types of work in order to secure enough additional income to support a family Mount Hope Nurseries Protest Between ninety and ninety five per cent of the sales persons employed by the I do not know of a single case where the minimum wage plan has been tried and it has been made to work 28 June 2014 American Nurseryman www nurserymansite com

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